Gearing up for modern mechanization in the Middle Kingdom
The National People's Congress (NPC) approved a law in 2004 to promote agricultural mechanization that also guarantees a raft of measures for farmers buying and using farming machinery.
The central government provides 30-percent subsidies for buyers of approved agricultural equipment. Some provinces also match these funds with their own subsidies.
Agricultural mechanization is crucial to accelerating economic development in rural areas and increasing farmers' incomes, and such legal guarantees and policy support are crucial, said Liu Mingzu, chairman of the NPC Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee.
China's average mechanization rate in farming and harvesting now stands at only about 30 percent. Tractors and harvesters are mainly used in grain production and are much less popular for rearing sheep and beef. Mechanization in storing and processing agricultural products is also lagging.
Early this spring, the government announced 8.3 billion yuan ($1.07 billion) in subsidies for farmers, of which 1.1 billion yuan ($142 million) will go to the machinery sectors. The central government cancelled the agro-tax rate gradually, reducing it from 7 percent in 2004 to zero in 2006 in hopes of encouraging agricultural production.
China Daily
(China Daily 04/24/2007 page20)
